1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a virtual mouse system, and more particularly, to a virtual mouse driving apparatus and method which can provide a more convenient user interface for various information appliances equipped with a monitor, such as computers and set-top boxes, by obtaining two-handed gesture information using a video camera and processing a variety of two-handed gestures as equivalent mouse commands based on the obtained two-handed gesture information.
2. Description of the Related Art
Information appliances, such as computers and set-top boxes, include keyboards and mouse as user interfaces. Users input various commands to information appliances just by moving a mouse or clicking buttons of the mouse. However, a keyboard or a mouse of an information appliance is not sufficiently convenient especially when a user is on the move, carrying the information appliance. Therefore, in order to enhance the convenience of users who use information appliances, a variety of voice or gesture-based user interface methods have been developed or commercialized.
In gesture-based user interface methods, various gesture capturing tools, such as a pen, a touch pad, a camera, and etc., are used. Of the various gesture capturing tools, a pen and a touch pad are most widely used for mobile devices, such as personal digital assistants (PDAs). A gesture-based user interface system using a camera can recognize gestures of a user more precisely, and is thus more convenient than gesture-based user interface systems using other gesture capturing tools. However, due to the complexity of gesture recognition and low gesture recognition rates, the commercialization of gesture-based user interface systems using a camera is still in its infancy. Most existing gesture-based user interface systems attempt to represent a considerable number of commands as gestures using only one hand, and thus may not be able to act as an efficient user interface because of a failure to efficiently represent so many commands. In addition, recognition of hand gestures by existing gesture-based user interface systems is too complicated to achieve high gesture recognition rates.